Freight market pendulum swings back toward normal

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

freight market may finally be finding a bottom. Shippers shouldn’t count on a return to the go-go days of Covid, but resilient US consumers offer a way out of the morass. Bank of America Corp.’s biweekly short-term truckload demand indicator increased 10% in the period ending Aug.

10 relative to the same stretch in 2022. This was the first year-over-year increase in 72 weeks, and the benchmark hit the highest level since June 2022, analyst Ken Hoexter wrote in a report. Accurate Transport, a New Jersey-based logistics company that was founded in 1997, had a record day this week for pallet volumes, pickups and revenue in its less-than-truckload business.

This segment of the trucking economy, known as LTL, relies on a warehousing and distribution network to combine smaller shipments from various companies on one truck for short-haul deliveries. This was the specialty of Yellow Corp., the trucking company that went bankrupt earlier this month. “We’re expecting the third quarter and the fourth quarter to be really, really strong in the freight industry on the LTL side,” Brett Demmers, chief operating officer of Accurate Transport, said in an interview.

“I think the bottom hit in March or maybe April, but it’s been an upward positive incline.” Meanwhile, global average ocean freight rates for a 40-foot container have climbed for five consecutive weeks, according to data from maritime advisory and research firm Drewry. That's the longest positive streak since January 2022, although shipping costs remain more than 80% below the September 2021 peak. The Port of Los Angeles moved more containers in June that it has in any month since last July, with volumes coming in just 5% below the 2022 record.